The provincial government has announced it will build a new junior-senior high school in Onoway.

Whitecourt-Ste. Anne MLA George VanderBurg made the announcement Thursday, Jan. 30, at Onoway Junior-Senior High School, which the new grades 7-12 school will replace. The project is expected to be completed in 2017, according to Lisa Bakos, communications officer for Northern Gateway Public Schools.

In an Alberta government press release, VanderBurg was quoted as saying, “In just a few short years, Onoway will be home to a new, state-of-the-art school, designed to meet and adapt to changing educational and community needs.”

Judy Muir, chairwoman of the Northern Gateway School Division’s board of trustees, said the project had been a priority since 2007.

“It means so much to the Board, students and staff and to the larger community,” Muir said in a Northern Gateway media release. “That it is a replacement school rather than a modernization is very significant in that students attending the current high school will not have their learning interrupted through the construction process. It is very good news indeed.”

Northern Gateway Public Schools Superintendent Kevin Andrea said the announcement was “the result of years of behind the scenes work by our trustees, our MLA and key individuals in the Department of Education and Infrastructure. This project will ensure that students from Onoway and surrounding areas will have high quality educational programming in a state of the art facility.”

Bakos said that Onoway Junior-Senior High School has 521 students, and another 475 students attend Onoway Elementary School.

She added, “Next steps in the planning and development stage will occur when senior administration sits down with government representatives to discuss the scope and timeline for the project.”